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Thoughts on TennCare expansion

Posted
Friday, March 15, 2019 12:35 pm

A recent letter supported our Republican Legislators’ failure to fill the gap between premium assisted health insurance under the Affordable Care Act and the need for insurance by working poor persons below 138% of the poverty income line. It also dismissed the loss of healthcare provided by the Cumberland Hospital and the more than a million dollars CRMC spent in trying to provide vital services through this hospital.

The Republicans last year voted to spend $40 million to enforce “work requirements” for about 6,000 persons, which might possibly save $7 million. They rejected amendments to expand medicaid. They rejected an amendment to drop work requirements if it costs more than it saves. This is supposed to be the party of fiscal responsibility but seems willing to spend our tax money to attack the working poor.

The letter left out many important facts. Failing to expand TennCare (medicaid) left Tennessee as a state with old eligibility requirements which make TennCare unnecessarily complicated and costly to administer. This is one reason why TennCare has no functioning eligibility computer system. After several tries, a system is five years late.

Refusing to expand TennCare will cost us $26 billion federal dollars that include our federal taxes. We could make good use of $26 billion more for healthcare. We need to fight the meth and opioid addiction epidemics. We need to keep rural hospitals and clinics open so folks have help nearby.

Governor Lee’s Budget proposes “$35 million more for opioid-related initiatives, including $3 million more for the Creating Homes Initiative, which would add about 200 more housing opportunities in the first year; and $2.3 million to provide 70 to 80 beds in a Women's Residential Recovery Court.” A pittance compared to the problem and what TennCare expansion could accomplish throughout the state.

There are caption (incomplete) bills which could be amended to expand TennCare and passed in a few days. Republican legislators are refusing TennCare expansion as an ideological position without regard to reason or reality. (Ask the Tennessee Hospital Association.) And you kind readers who voted these folks in should tell them to change direction.

The fiscal stability of rural hospitals and health care depends upon it. More importantly, more than 250,000 hard working but poor Tennesseans would have the access to health care that those of us who are better off have. Tennessee General Assembly - Just do it!